Class review

I learned a lot this term, a lot more than I thought I would. I was really surprised because I thought this class was only going to be about STDs and AIDS but it really was a public health class and the effect of STDs and AIDS on society and how the public handles governmental health plans. I really liked that aspect of we learned because I have been hearing so much about the specific illnesses and nothing about how to deal with all of that on a cultural and global level. The most usual thing was splitting up the lectures so that we would have a dry lecture day then a video or guest speaker day; it really made the class more enjoyable. During the lecture I really did not like the incomplete slides on the web. There were many days that I forgot to print of the slides so I was overwhelmed with all the information that I had to write down that I just stopped trying and just listened. If you don’t have those slides printed out ahead of time there is no way that you will be able to have all the information later. Next time I would change the lectures so that a lot of the technical stuff is on the slides and the other information like what you add that is not on the slides the information we need to write down because it was so hard to keep up with the lecture if you did not have those slides. I think that this is a very important topic and should be taught at a university level. This is about our health and as we go on and have sexual encounters it is important to stay healthy. The public health section especially should be taught at a university level because in the late teens and early 20’s most people begin to look to their future and the impact issues have on the future for not just them but the communities around them so this information would be lost to students in high school, they would just dismiss the importance of the subject.

Life of Bob

I learned that in most cases it is very hard to contact your past sexual partners because in most cases the time from infection to diagnosis is over several years so many people loose contact information. I think that his experience is very similar to many individuals in those societies where sexual contact must be mutual and societies where the individuals are promiscuous. In patriarchal societies the women do not really have a choice if they have sex so many women never get tested because they already assume they have it or are too afraid of the results. In rural areas heterosexual sexual activity is the main route of exposure. This is due to the fact that condom use is not practiced regularly. Also most people in rural areas tend to be very religious so instead of the usual intercourse many younger people participate in anal intercourse and over forms of sexual contact where pregnancy is not going to be an outcome so forms of protection are seen as not needed. I think that here are two major obstacles to treat rural areas; the first being education. Typically the people in rural areas are not as well educated and it takes some time for new information to reach them. Also it has to do with logistics; right now most of the programs are looking at how to benefit the most people so they tend to focus on dense populations because that is where the information will be accessible to more people.